Things Fall Apart
by betruebeyou
Summary: "I've learned, over time, that it doesn't matter what I fill this space with. I'm just skin and bones and heart and soul," is what she told him when he told her she bothered with the wrong things. He was amazed, but he shouldn't have been. She frequently spoke like rapids, beautiful and dangerous. James was a question with no answer, but Lily believed every mystery could be solved.
1. Prologue - Mind over Matter

_Prologue_

"_Turning and turning in the widening gyre_

_The falcon cannot hear the falconer;_

_Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold,a_

_Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,_

_The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere_

_The ceremony of innocence is drowned;_

_The best lack all conviction, while the worst_

_Are full of passionate intensity."_

"I've learned, over time, that it doesn't matter what I fill this space with. I'm just skin and bones, and heart and soul," is what she told him when he told her she bothered with the wrong things and he was amazed, but he shouldn't have been. She frequently spoke like rapids, beautiful and dangerous. She knew she was more intelligent than he, and he knew he was cleverer. She knew she was fire, and every fire needs a spark. He was a question with no answer, but she believed every mystery could be solved. She would drive herself into madness before learning to move on. He was addictive. She was sober. He was reckless. She was fearful. She learned, over time that it does not matter what she fills her space with. He learned, over time, that he wished desperately that he had learned the same.

She knew her story long before she lived it or so she believed, because she never would have dreamt she would sit at the grave of James Potter and James Potter knew—quite wisely, in fact—that his story was only about a page long as of yet. He wrongly assumed he was the author. She was steam and he was smoke; Lily saw it that way and when she told him this, he rolled his eyes, reminding her that not everyone spoke in metaphors. "Can you wrap your miniscule brain around anything?" her pink little lips had whispered and that's all he remembered: those pretty little lips and how they tasted—strawberry, quite often.

James Potter was no martyr. He knew some would remember him as such, but as long as she knew and she knew he had a loud mouth and that it would get him killed one day, just as she knew he would never back down from a fight—even the smallest. He was rash and lovely and intricate and broken. She was broke, too, but she thought a bit more.

With a wand pointed in his face, James Potter could do nothing but stare down the length of it. Wandless and alone. He couldn't help himself from thinking that this was the last way he would've liked to go. He would've liked to fight, to have a chance. He wondered if he had the fast reflexes to snatch the wand before it killed him. Only one-way to find out, he reckoned.

James was a rugged thing. He was skinny, but he was strong; he was quick and he never wavered. The bottom of the hill was foreign to him, as he'd never known anything but his ornate little throne that was perched right on top. He had this bravery in his heart that roared around in his otherwise cavernous chest, this bravery he wasn't quite sure that belonged to him, because when would he put it to use? So when he stared into those dark eyes, he stood a bit taller.

"Take a good look," the voice had drawled. "I'm the last thing you'll ever see." James had been tempted to retort something sardonic; old habits die hard. He kept quiet, however. His mouth clamped shut and heart on fire. He closed his eyes and thought of her, because what better way to go than thinking of an angel.

"You're no poet," his voice had dragged, like his hand through his hair. "And you've ought to stop pretending." So for many dark nights, she heard three words bouncing in her head. You're no poet. You're no Poet. You're. No. Poet. And many months later, she heard a different group of three. I love you. And a year or so more, it was another. Grief is a fickle thing. Lily Evans did not need—did not want—to be saved, but perhaps, she thought, a little bit of relief would be accepted.

She was nicer than he, but she was a fiery thing. When he wasn't, injustice was her spark and she never failed to create a flame. "You're a right solar flare, Evans," he had told her. She reminded him that not everyone spoke in metaphors, a smirk dancing on those pretty little lips. "You're no poet," she told him and his eyes flickered, but he already knew of course: he was no poet and nor was she, but there was something about their rhythm that was a quite a bit like poetry.

* * *

><p>"Get to the damn point, Black," she had whispered furiously, but he paid no attention. He chose rather to focus on the touch of her soft hand on his right forearm and prayed to God she'd never notice how tense it was. He had a reputation to withhold, you know. And so did she, but she was much better at it. Her's was real, never forced. She was a hurricane and Sirius was drowning. At least, that's what he'd figured.<p>

However, contrary to his belief, Ella Wright was a bit of a mess. She was a vivacious natural disaster and in her path of wreckage, she often happened to destroy herself. She was braver than she thought and hell of a lot stronger than she seemed.

She looked up at him, as she often had to due to the seven inches of height he had on her, and gave him a look so as to say, "get on with it." He did a sort of hand movement against his thigh. A snap with his third finger and thumb and then his fist against his thigh. He did it, Ella had noticed, whenever he was nervous. Nervous, that is, or terrified.

"Sirius," she said, carefully. The sound of his first name out of her mouth didn't sound natural.

"I love you."

She slapped him, then and rolled her eyes.

"You don't love me. You wouldn't want to and anyway, we've got bigger issues."

"There's always going to be bigger issues."

"And I'm always going to be an unadulterated mess."

"Yes, and I quite like it."

She smiled, even though she didn't want to. Her hands on curvy hips, one cocked out. They had an interesting dynamic. No one really understood it, least of all the two of them. It was fun and it was wild and it was a roller coaster of a ride and it included lots of things, but love was not one of them.

* * *

><p>"If you're going to toss me some wild card right now, I don't care to hear it," Melody said. She was sitting on the floor of her flat, reading a book she'd borrowed from Remus months ago. Remus didn't answer her. He just sat down next to her quietly.<p>

If Melody had not been furious with him, she would have noticed that he had not gone through his usual routine of coming inside. He had not hung up his coat, laughing about some joke Sirius had told him. He had not jangled his keys (he quite enjoyed his muggle car) as he placed them in the bowl by the door. He had not asked her how her day was, if she was well, what'd she'd been doing, if anything was new. He had not kissed her silky black hair and breathed in her aroma, lilacs and peppermint.

If Melody Ku had not been furious with Remus Lupin, she would have noticed the tear roll down his cheek. She would have noticed how he was holding his breath, trying to conceal the ragged sob that was fighting to escape his chest. She would have noticed the bruise on his forearm where he had banged it against the nearest hard surface when he heard the noise. She would have noticed all of this long before he collapsed in her lap. His screams were the most painful sound she had ever heard. They were broken and they were scared.

She pulled him up, clutching his face. All anger with him was gone and she looked at him with soft eyes. She asked what was wrong, but she was scared to hear it. She didn't want to know.

"James is dead."


	2. Chapter One - Firsts Lasts

_**Chapter One – Last Firsts**_

_There is never a time or place for true love. It happens accidentally, in a heartbeat, in a single flashing, throbbing moment." _

_The Truth About Forever, Sarah Dessen_

James Potter smoked entirely too many cigarettes. It was one addiction of many, one he had picked up in the first week of the summer. He'd bummed one off a grimy bloke in London. He wasn't addicted, but there was something about the bitter taste that overwhelmed the rest of the poisonous things inside of him. He had an awful habit of flicking the butts off of high surfaces. There had been many times when they've fallen to the top of someone's head, whether on accident or on purpose. His mother had an awful habit of snatching them out of his mouth and yelling at him, something in French.

It was an early September morning-the first September morning of the year, to be exact-and it was entirely too cold for James' liking. He endured it, however, because he wanted to smoke and he valued his life too much to do it in the house. He flicked his tiny black Bic lighter and the wind blew the flame around in front of his dry, cold face. He watched it for a minute before putting the cigarette to the flame. He took a drag off of it and when he exhaled he couldn't tell if the white cloud egressing his mouth was more smoke or vapor.

He finished the cigarette quickly; he could have set a record. He put it out in the grass and flicked it back into the woods behind his little manor. He grabbed another from the box inside his shirt pocket and repeated the process, a little bit faster this time. He had never smoked to enjoy it.

He heard the backdoor open and he spit the dangling cigarette from his mouth, stomping it into the dirt.

"James Potter!"

"Morning, Mum," James answered, craning his neck around to face his beautiful and rather furious mother and Mrs. Potter was beautiful. She was soft edges and eyes, contrasting with her tough jaw and raw love.

"Give them to me," she demanded, hand outstretched. "Now!"

"That was the last one...honest," he said, hands raised in faux innocence.

"Do I look like I was born yesterday, boy?"

"Please. I know you're very, incredibly wise," James said, grinning up at her.

"Give me the cigarettes."

He pulled them out of the pocket in his button down shirt and placed them in his mother's hand. He didn't mind losing them, particularly. He had plenty of others. It was the principle of the thing.

"I'm nearly seventeen, Mum," he pointed out, continuing to ground the cigarette into the ground with the heel of his shoe.

"Nearly is the key word. In March, you can smoke all the cigarettes you want. Until then, at least try to mind me," she pleaded.

He nodded gratuitously, sticking his tongue into his cheek with eyes pointed downward. He shoved his hands into his jean pockets; the sharp morning air was slicing against them relentlessly. His mother went back inside with a ruffle of his dark hair, and he considered following. He didn't, however, because he knew she would finish her coffee in the kitchen and then dump herself back into the king sized bed that had come to be far too cold and far too empty for her and with both of them inside, the house seemed even more desolate. It was all long hallways and dim lights.

So instead, he flicked his lighter again and pulled a cigarette from behind his ear. She didn't notice much of anything these days and she never thought to take the lighter.

* * *

><p>The first of September most always came with beautiful weather and an air of excitement for Lily Evans. This year it came with the added bonus of her father at the bottom of a bottle. Her father didn't drink often, but when he did, it was the whole damn thing of Cîroc. He had never held his alcohol well, so Lily made her way to Kings Cross alone that year. One by one, her family members were being plucked from her. She admired the creativity; it was never the same method twice. Jealousy, death, and crippling grief, all three admirable choices.<p>

She held herself together astonishingly well in public, for someone who had spent most of the summer attempt to piece together their own shattered remains.

She reflected back on the last September First and all the previous ones she had spent at Kings Cross, each were shockingly similar to each other but devastatingly unalike this one. For one thing, last year she had had a living mother and a stable father. Her sister still hated her though, and she figured, one for three was better than nothing.

The surreality of this being the last September First at Kings Cross was beginning to set in as Lily placed her trunk in the luggage carriage of the train. Her last first day of school, to be exact. Hogwarts had become something of a safe haven over the years. There was no Petunia scorching her with cruelties. There was no war. There was no dead mother. There was just magic and friends and the occasional Hinkypunk.

The thought of leaving Hogwarts was enough to bewilder, if not frighten, Lily. Most of her life for the past six years had occurred inside the comfort of the castle's four walls. It wasn't possible to comprehend the possibility of leaving with no intention of returning. Now, apart from devastating, the thought was terrifying. There was a war raging on, after all. The world outside of her sheltered castle became more dangerous each day. When the world is suddenly filled with people calling for the genocide of your kind, you don't step into without hesitation.

"Lily!"

Lily snapped her head around towards the voice calling her name and prayed, more for their sake than her own, that it didn't belong to the person she suspected. She knew it would, of course. She knew that voice well. She also knew, just as well, what that voice had said, what it had dared to call her. Her eyes met the sallow-looking, tall boy that had called her.

"Could we talk for a bit?" Severus Snape asked her. His timid voice seemed miles away. She wanted to retort quickly, but she forced herself to stop and think before saying something she'd later regret. Thankfully, she'd always been something of a fast mind.

"I don't much fancy any sort of quality time with you, thanks," she said. His face flickered and Lily felt a twist in her gut. _He's your best friend,_ she thought. _Was,_ she corrected herself almost instantly. Was, because she was tired of being his exception. Was, because friends don't call friends such awful things. Was, because if everyone else just like her could be worthy of genocide, why couldn't she?

"Lily," he started, but she cut him off with the raise of a hand and a shake of her head. She walked away swiftly, leaving Severus with a sour look on his didn't want to give herself the chance to spite herself.

Lily scanned the crowd, searching through the sea of people for her small group of friends. She hoped to find them in time to grab a compartment before they started to fill with students. Soon, she caught sight of none other than Ella Wright. She stood with her parents, one hand on her hip and the other flying around in the air, as they argued about something.

"Yes, I'm not an idiot. Of course I remembered my wand. Merlin, you'd think I was born yesterday the way you treat me. I am perfectly capable of remembering my _wand._" she said, her eyes rolling towards the ceiling. Ella rolled her eyes so often, Lily thought it a miracle they didn't pop out of her skull.

Lily grabbed her shoulder and shook her head. With a tap to the Head Girl pin on her chest she said, "Disrespect to your elders? That'll be fifteen points from Gryffindor."

"Ah, shove it…and take that off. You look like a prat wearing that around over Muggle clothing," Ella said. She tried to sound annoyed, but she couldn't stop the smile creeping on to her face. She hugged Lily tightly and kissed the top of her head with a laugh. "It's gonna be a good year, kid."

* * *

><p>"Breaking news," Ella announced a good hour later. Marlene McKinnon looked up from the magazine she had been skimming, eyebrows raised. Lily groaned loudly and Melody Ku shook her head.<p>

"How could you possibly have any type of gossip?" Melody asked. "We haven't even got to school yet."

"Yes, but as I am all knowing—," this instigated snorts from all of the girls. "I've got some pre-term breaking news. Like I was saying, I happen to know that one of you had a right good snog with none other than Sirius Black this summer."

Lily's eyes widened in shock and she let out a laugh.

"Now, my Sight is a little bit foggy at the moment, so I'm not exactly sure, but I can deduce that the chances of it being Mrs. Remus Lupin-" she threw a glance in Melody's direction, "are close to shit nothing. I can also deduce that if it were Miss Evans, Black would be dead at the hands of none other than James Potter. So that leaves you."

She wiggled her eyebrows at Marlene, a smirk on her face. Marlene shook her head and said, "Absolutely not. My bet's on Lily. She's sneaky. She probably did it loads of times too."

"Nobody who makes out with Sirius Black does it again," Ella said at the same time that Lily slapped Marlene's leg.

"Except for you," Melody chimed in.

Ella winked and right as she did, the compartment door slid opened and the man of the hour sauntered in.

The ever present smug look on his face shone with effervescence and he said, "Oh, you girls. You're all just too happy, must be having a chat about me, then."

"You have no idea," Ella said. Sirius walked over towards her and tilted his head to the side. He sat down on her lap and she groaned under his weight. "This seat happens to be taken, Black."

"Looks vacant to me," he laughed.

"Good one," she said. She grabbed his face with one hand and squeezed it playfully. "Which one of my little friends did you taint this summer?"

"Already told you, love, you'll never find out," he answered with a laugh.

"Right, right," Ella said, she leaned around Sirius' body to look at her friends and mouthed something terribly offensive. "Sirius, be a dear, and go find the food trolley and buy me a chocolate frog and when you come back with it, just open the door enough that your hand can fit through."

"I get the feeling I'm not wanted," he said as he stood up from on top of Ella.

"Oh, not at all," she answered and he shrugged as if to say 'it happens'. She shrugged back as if to say 'sure does.'

"Before I go," Sirius added as he began to walk out. He looked to Melody and continued, "Remus' been wanting to see you. Probably not the kind of 'see you' you can do on the train, but I digress."

Warmth flushed into Melody's face furiously quick and Ella kicked Sirius softly, pushing him out the door.

Lily always wondered how Ella did it. No one could push Sirius Black around except for her. It was a right mystery, it was. But without fail, just as Lily knew it would happen, a few minutes later, Sirius returned with a chocolate frog and a crooked smile.

The rest of the train ride went by with mindless chatter and excessive joking. When they finally pulled into the Hogsmeade station, they found a carriage quickly.

For most of her time at Hogwarts, Lily, like many others, believed the carriages were bewitched to drive themselves. At the end of last year, when they were boarding the carriages, she saw the skeletal horses for the first time. Thestrals, she knew now. She was shocked, to say the least. Frightened, even. When she asked her friends where they had come from, Ella thought she was trying to play a joke. Melody, on the other hand, had looked at her confused, "They've always been there, Lil." All they did was remind her of her mother, how she'd never hear her laugh again. Looking at them now, however, she thought they were a sad kind of beautiful.

* * *

><p>James was not a fan of rain or darkness. The world, it seemed, was not a rather big fan of him. It had rained all night, increasingly harder with each and every hour. When the rain poured down hard enough-like it was on this night, it kept him from sleep. He'd lie in bed and twist and turn for hours.<p>

No point in wasting time on sleep anyway, he figured. He pulled himself out of his four poster bed, grabbed his glasses off the bedside table, and walked over to the window. He could barely see a thing through the falling drops; he could faintly make out the outline of the whomping willow in the distance.

He snagged his invisibility cloak from under his bed and threw it over himself. It was a rather useful heirloom, having been James' fathers. James had been putting it to good-or bad, depending on how you looked at it-use for years now.

He crept through the corridors, being careful to step lightly. One thing he learned very quickly his first year at Hogwarts is that while the cloak may make you invisible, it doesn't keep you from making sound.

He found himself entering the Astronomy tower. He climbed to the top of it as quickly as his legs would allow, without tripping over the end of the cloak. When he was finally outside, he leaned to the edge of the parapet. He liked this tower most out of the many the school had to offer. It was the highest point of the castle, giving off a strange euphoric feeling.

He pulled his lighter out of his pocket, along with a box of cigarettes. It was the last of them, other than a few broken ones crumbling around in the filter. He cupped his hands around the lighter as he flicked it to keep the wind or the rain from putting out the flame. It took a minute to get it lit. He could've put some sort of charm around it if he hadn't left his wand in the dormitory.

He took a long drag, his jaw shaking from the cold when he exhaled.

"Cheers to the new year," he muttered to himself, the cigarette dangling from his lips.

* * *

><p>As it happened every year, somehow everything Lily had learned the previous year had seemed to slip away from her over the summer and she found herself pouring over a particularly nasty piece of Defense Against the Dark Arts homework, her head pounding in thought. Granted, it was a summer assignment which should have been done ages ago, but in any case, she was in a nasty predicament. She ran a hand through her hair, an exasperated noise escaping her lips. She flipped through the pages of her textbook. She was begging for answers that simply didn't want to be found.<p>

Melody sat on the ground next to her, her short legs crossed underneath her body. She blew her long black hair out of her face, tongue sticking out her mouth as she attempted to finish scrawling whatever it is she was working on. Lily dropped out of her armchair, on to the ground next to Melody.

"You working on this too?" Lily asked, showing Melody the Defense Against the Dark Arts work.

"That?" Melody asked. "Oh, no. I gave up on that forever ago to tell you the truth. I was going to ask Corey Hart to help me."

Corey Hart was easily the brightest wizard at Hogwarts throughout all seven years and he was only a fifth year. At any given time you could find anyone from ages eleven to seventeen asking him for homework help and he was happy to give it, something that Ella found impossible; she decided long ago that he had to be a robot of some sort, although she had to have Lily explain to her exactly what a robot was.

"Do you reckon Remus has finished?" Lily asked, nodding over to where Remus Lupin was reading by the fire. Remus Lupin was a small studious boy. No matter when or where, you'd always find him with two things: a book and his unbelievably quick wit. He was quiet but by their fourth year, Lily and Melody had decided that he easily outstripped Sirius Black and James Potter in the humor department. Coincidentally, the same time when Melody first kissed Remus.

"Probably, but I doubt he'd want to be bothered…" Melody trailed off, her porcelain skin turning a hue of pink.

"Oh, I'm sure he wouldn't mind, especially coming from you..."

"Please." Melody said, looking down at her work.

"Is this some weird 'need to be smarter than my significant other' complex? I'm going to ask Remus about the work, but we're going to get to the root of your relationship issues later." Lily said, a short giggle coming off the end.

'We don't have any relationship issues! We're just...competitive is all," Melody said defensively.

"Just competitive? At the end of fifth year, you two didn't talk for weeks because you would've died if you got any less O. than the other!"

"Couples motivate each other! It's healthy," Melody said, stifling a laugh.

They went to ask Remus about the assignment. Remus helped gladly; he always did.

"You know," Remus said, rubbing the back of his neck. "It's actually not all that difficult. I know it seems it, but it's really not."

"We can't all be geniuses, Remus," Melody laughed.

Remus scoffed and turned slightly red.

"Hardly," he answered. "But that's not the point at any rate. The point is that we did this same assignment at the very end of last year."

"You're kidding!" Lily exclaimed, a laugh bubbling at her lips.

"I'm not and here's the real kicker, you two asked me for help with it then as well."

Melody and Remus started talking then and Lily thought it best to leave them alone. She didn't want to impose on anything, after all. It was getting late anyway. She, however, had a brain full to bursting with overactive thoughts and a swollen heart in her chest and neither are easy to sleep on, so without a second thought, she walked out of the common room and into the dark corridor.

She wandered around the school silently. The castle gave off a very eerie feel at night, unlike anything else. The dark, cold stone walls did not seem the same as they did in the light.

She figured her being out of bed couldn't result in too much trouble. She could always claim to be patrolling _(already abusing powers,_ she thought). Lily was rather skilled at getting herself out of trouble. She should have seen a lot more detentions than she did, but her sweet voice and her sparkling smile kept her out of too much trouble.

She came to the door to the astronomy tower. It was cracked open slightly and with a turn of her head, to check for anyone near her, she slipped inside of it. She climbed the stairs slowly, as there were many of them and she wasn't the most athletic.

When she reached the top and found herself outside, the freezing wind slapped at her face and she heard a low humming. She did her best to stay quiet and crept around the edge of the tower.

She saw the silhouette of a tall, skinny boy, a cloud of smoke exiting his mouth. James Potter. He was leaning over the edge of the parapet, his cigarette barely clinging to his fingers.

She cleared her throat to announce herself. He must have heard; she was barely three feet away. He didn't turn around. She did it again and said, "You really shouldn't do that."

He turned around then, leaning with his elbows against the cold stone. He looked at her carefully in the light of the dying torches. Cocking an eyebrow up, he asked, "Shouldn't do what? Lean over the edge or smoke?"

Lily's mouth turned up slightly and she replied, "Both, but I meant the cigarettes. They're awful."

James mouthed the word 'oh' and nodded in agreement, before taking another hit. _Classic Potter_, Lily thought.

"How about this," James proposed, smirking slightly. "I've just finished this one-" he flicked the used butt off the astronomy tower and leaned over to watch it fall as far down as he could see. He pulled another box out of his pocket, ripped open the plastic, grabbed another cigarette, and continued, "so this can be my last one. Or at least, my last first one. Got to finish the box; these things aren't cheap."

"Sounds fantastic, except, you know it really works a lot better if you just stop cold turkey," she advised.

"Ohhhh," James dragged the words out. "No, no, no. I'm not addicted. I don't get addicted...to anything. I just like it."

Lily nodded, but held a face of disbelief. James noticed and shrugged it off with ease.

"I would also like," he went on, "to know what you're doing up here at this hour."

"I could ask the same of you," she pointed out. James had a habit of excusing himself of doing the exact thing that he was accusing others of.

"You could," James agreed. "but I asked first and it would be a bit rude."

Lily laughed and explained, "I couldn't sleep."

"Mmm, that makes two of us," James muttered.

* * *

><p>Lily always had a love for this one secluded spot of land by the Great Lake. It was on a perfectly green patch of grass, towards the edge of the water. On a hot day, she was perfectly shaded by a nearby tree. If she stretched her toes out just a bit, they would dip into the water. As if it weren't already perfect, it was beautifully secluded from more obvious parts of the lake. As far as she knew, no one ever came there, save herself. She constantly found herself there, whenever she was in need of alone time. Most often, she would take a book and read it where she could enjoy the peace and quiet.<p>

So that is where she found herself on the first Saturday of term. She was sitting on the ground, knees tucked into her chest. She let her thick, red hair flow out behind her, the wind keeping it up in the air. Pieces of it were tangling in her face, but she left them there. She had brought a book with her, but it stayed on the ground next to her, unopened. Today, she was just thinking. Hardly thinking, actually. Her mind was mostly clear, with the occasional stray thought finding its way through.

She thought mostly of her mother here. She had loved to swim. She would take Lily and Petunia to a lake not far from their home when they were younger. The girls would play in the banks of the water, while they're mother floated on her back nearby. As they got older, Petunia began to refuse to come. So Lily would read, with her feet in the water and her mother would sing as she waded in the lake.

At Hogwarts, sitting in that alcove of hers was the closest she ever felt to her mother. It was as if she could feel her there. If she laid back and closed her eyes, she could hear the sweet voice of her mother singing to her. It carried through the trees and the wind and grew louder and louder until it overwhelmed every bird chirping and every leaf rustling, until all she could hear was the pure voice of her mother.

The sound of feet squishing into moist grass brought Lily back to reality. She clenched her jaw and pushed the strands of hair out of her face. She gave her best attempt at looking busy, shoving her nose into the novel she had brought.

She heard the footsteps behind her, feet squishing into moist grass and mud. She clenched her jaw and pushed the hair out of her face. She grabbed her book, busying herself.

"Nice try, Lil," Ella Wright said, as she neared the spot where Lily was sitting. She fell down next to Lily, crossing her long copper legs underneath her. "No use trying to seem busy when I've already seen you."

Lily smiled and said, "I didn't know it was you."

"Well, obviously," Ella laughed.

They sat quietly together, the only sound coming from the drumming of Ella's fingers on her leg and the water continuously lapping against the bank, always coming back as if it would pain it to stay away.

"How'd you find me here anyway?" Lily asked eventually.

"I know all your hiding spots, kid," Ella explained. "My question is: what are you doing here?"

Lily shrugged her shoulders and confided, "Just thinking."

Ella looked at her best friend with softer eyes, then. She put a hand on Lily's knee and squeezed. Lily's felt the comfort consume her and in that moment, she felt much less alone.

"Your Mum?" Ella asked carefully.

Lily nodded, looking down. They didn't speak for the rest of the afternoon. There was no need. They sat on the damp grass, staring out into the sun, bathing in it's warmth and the pure serenity of togetherness.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: This chapter has been modified & edited so many times by this point and I think I am finally ready to put it up and keep it up! Enjoy everyone! Xoxo, Grace**


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